PRETRIAL RISK ASSESSMENTS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR JUDGES

[...]risks don't just have magnitudes-they also have flavors. [...]the risk assessment algorithm cannot distinguish between the two. Because the inputs to the algorithm reflect a race-andclass-biased world, the resulting risk scores reflect that bias. [...]risk assessment tools can provide a first screening by which to identify a large group of defendants for immediate and automatic release, as is done in Kentucky.17 By enabling the release of a large swath of defendants without a bail hearing, risk assessments restore room for the important work of judges to conduct a substantial, indepth hearing to identify those defendants who might truly pose an identifiable risk to an individual person or to the community. Carlos Berdejó, Criminalizing Race: Racial Disparities in Plea Bargaining, 59 B.C. L. Rev. 1187 (2018) (finding in Wisconsin state courts that "[w]hite defendants are twenty-five percent more likely than black defendants to have their principal initial charge dropped or reduced to a lesser crime," making whites who face felony charges less likely to be convicted of felonies, and that "white defendants initially charged with misdemeanors are more likely than black defendants either to be convicted for crimes carrying no possible incarceration, or not to be convicted at all," while noting that plea bargaining patterns are similar across races for the most serious crimes).